2
Sep
2010
Posted on Sep 2nd, 2010 under App Store, iPad, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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A few months ago, Twitter announced that they had acquired Tweetie and the web (I refuse to use the word “blogosphere” because it is a stupid word) exploded with predictions that they had effectively killed off the market for 3rd party Twitter applications.
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2
Sep
2010
Posted on Sep 2nd, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone Apps
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Sometimes you roll along, having a pretty good day… and sometimes, you just want a giant worm to rise up out of the ground and destroy everything. Super Mega Worm is for that second type of day. (You’ll have to find something else for the first — Doodle Jump, perhaps?) It’s a game where you control a gigantic worm on a 2D field. You use a slider (or the accelerometer) to direct it through the soil and up onto the surface of the Earth, where puny little humans await their inevitable destruction. The game is funny in a morbid way; you end up cheering for the little worm as it grows (and learns new abilities) over time, and eventually, you’ll find yourself reveling in the destruction of the human race.
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1
Sep
2010
Posted on Sep 1st, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Booyah has released an iPhone and iPod touch version of its Facebook game, InCrowd, and it’s now available on the App Store. The app, like the very popular MyTown, uses location check-ins to create a game around social networking. But unlike MyTown, this app was originally released as a Facebook game. Booyah originally started InCrowd as its first Facebook venture, but it’s now bringing the game back to the iPhone, where it’s presumably more comfortable at development. But the Facebook and iPhone versions work together (in fact, you need a Facebook account to play it), so check-ins on either platform can be seen in the app.
As for the game itself, it’s exactly the kind of thing that’s very popular among the huge tween audience for Facebook games — there’s a cartoonish avatar that can interact with friends socially, and checking-in to certain places earns the avatars popularity and status. There’s a microtransaction element as well — interacting uses energy, and if you don’t want to wait for a refresh, you can spend 99 cents to get more. Standard social gaming stuff, although Booyah is pretty good at putting it together by now.
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30
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 30th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone Apps
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Apple set another milestone over the weekend when it reached 250,000 apps available in the App Store. Last Saturday, 148Apps recorded 252,227 apps currently available for the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch. Expect Steve Jobs to tout these numbers on Wednesday at the beginning of Apple’s scheduled press event.
As Electronista reports, Apple still has the numbers when it comes to mobile app stores. Unofficial statistics suggests that there are over 100,000 apps available in the Android Store, and far fewer — around 9,000 — in RIM’s BlackBerry App World.
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27
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 27th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Remember the Milk (RTM) is a popular Web-based to-do list manager with an equally popular iOS app (here’s our review). This week, the app’s developers have announced that it’s now free for the iPhone… with a few caveats.
Until now, the iPhone app was only available to those who paid US$25 a year or $2.99/month for an RTM pro account. The free version includes everything in the full version with the following exceptions: It only syncs manually (and once every 24 hours at most) and it doesn’t support push notifications. If you depend on the app to nag you into action, you might want to move on or consider the pro upgrade. However, those comfortable with referring to the app as the day progresses are in for a treat. RTM for iPhone is a solid app that you’re sure to enjoy.
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26
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 26th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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TeleNav is the developer of a lot of mobile navigation applications, including AT&T Navigator for the iPhone. Now the company has come out with an iPhone version of a popular app that originally launched for the BlackBerry platform — OnMyWay.
OnMyWay has a simple goal — it tells another person or group of people that you are currently “on your way” and sends them the estimated time of your arrival. The app sends new alerts to your contacts if your ETA changes (if you’re stuck in traffic, for instance), so that you can safely continue driving and not have to call or text someone else if you’re running late.
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25
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 25th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Project Sanctuary is one of the best dual-stick shooters I’ve seen on the App Store yet. It’s quick and responsive, and it’s got a surprisingly solid back-end, which includes four different characters to choose from, multiple game modes and settings, and even an in-game talent tree where you can specialize your characters and weapons as necessary in order to bring the best fight that you can. The game has a serviceable storyline, but the action here is all about shooting, moving, and using power-ups and weapons to take down as many enemies as possible.
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24
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 24th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Disney buying Tapulous was one of the most high-profile App Store acquisitions so far, and here are the first fruits of that partnership. First up, Disney reports that Tapulous has been integrated into the rest of the company — the studio is now fully part of the “Disney Mobile” division, so all future releases will come from the Disney Mobile name rather than the Tapulous brand. That contradicts with the actual App Store listing at the moment — there’s no mention of Disney in any of Tapulous’ app listings. But that information can take a while to change, so we’ll have to see if Disney updates those listings.
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24
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 24th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Piczle Lines is pretty much the perfect iPhone game. It’s a quick, pick-up and play puzzle affair, with a Japanese puzzle style that is easy to learn but gets twistier and tougher as it goes along. It’s well-polished, with a cute story mode and extra puzzle packs to play and buy as you go along. And oh yeah, it’s free to download and start playing.
You should probably be headed over to the App Store by now, but just in case you want to know more, Piczle Lines has you assembling (very low resolution) “photos” by drawing out various colored lines. The start and end of each line are marked by numbers saying how many line segments the lines take up, so your job is to connect the lines in just the right way, recreating whatever pictures you come up with.
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23
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 23rd, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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After many months of users having to resort to third-party or jailbroken apps to get push notifications from Gmail, Google has finally released an updated version of its iPhone app that now handily does that all for you.
The update — which is now freely available in the App Store — allows you to sign into one or several Google accounts and set up Gmail and Google Calendar push events, which work just as you’d expect. It’s not yet clear how consistently quick the app is at alerting you of new mail, though it seems to have a significant delay upon initial testing. So far connectivity to my Gmail account using the Mail app responds much quicker.
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23
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 23rd, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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A while back, we featured a game in this space called
White Lines, a sort of Simon Says-style gesture drawing game. The game’s creator, Kyle Webster, recently released his second app on the App Store, and this one is a little different — much more frantic, and much more colorful. It’s called
Plates!, and you can pick it up right now for an “introductory price” of US$0.99.
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20
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 20th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Let me preface this post by saying that I’m an old fuddy duddy.
imaGinyze (US$2.99) is an iPhone app that provides an augmented reality Heads Up Display (HUD) for drivers on the road. When mounted to a windshield, it monitors incoming video information and produces overlays for roads, traffic, signs and more. An electronic voice announces lane changes, your proximity to other vehicles and other such distracting information.
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20
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 20th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone Apps
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The very insightful Stuart Dredge over at Mobile Entertainment has compiled an amazing primer on all of the numbers behind the app market (which you can also see by clicking the “Read More” link, although it’s not viewable on an iPad or iPhone). If you want to know anything about how many apps are rolling out of the store, how many apps are installed on the average device, or what kinds of apps those are, Dredge’s presentation will tell you. It’s a really excellent compilation of everything we know about the App Store and the app market at large thus far.
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20
Aug
2010
Posted on Aug 20th, 2010 under App Store, iPhone, iPhone News, iPhone Tips
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Halfbrick Studios really made a splash with their iPhone debut, Fruit Ninja, and now they’ve followed it up with a little game called Monster Dash. It’s a running game in the vein of Canabalt, but rather than dodging skyscraper jumps and bombs, you’re fighting through pixelated monsters while sprinting along. The main addition to the game is a “shoot” button, so in addition to jumping obstacles and gaps as they come up, you can mow down enemies with various weapons, such as the (default) flameburster, uzis, and even a machine gun jetpack (that comes in handy when jumping).
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